After wealthy venture capitalist Tom Perkins wrote a letter to the editor in the Wall Street Journalcomparing Nazi Germany's war on Jews to America's "war" on the rich, he could only find one media outlet extreme enough to voice its support: the Wall Street Journal's editorial page.

Silicon Valley has never been known for its appreciation of subtleties. Case in point: eminent…
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Generally the WSJ editorial page goes along for a couple weeks churning out boring conservative economic policy pieces to lull you to sleep, and then, BLAMMO, they drop something spicy to remind you that they are, in fact, the single most right wing news outlet this side of Stormfront.org. Today, they take on the challenge of supporting crazy old coot Tom Perkins—a man who wrote, just one week ago, "Kristallnacht was unthinkable in 1930; is its descendant "progressive" radicalism unthinkable now?" No easy feat!

"That comparison was unfortunate, albeit provocative," writes the WSJ, getting that uncomfortable issue off the table once and for all. Then they move on to the real editorial jujitsu: turning the lunatic statements of one rich and out-of-touch man into a referendum on liberalism. Observe:

While claiming to be outraged at the Nazi
reference, the critics seem more incensed that Mr. Perkins dared to
question the politics of economic class warfare. The boys at Bloomberg
View—we read them since no one else does—devoted an entire editorial to
inequality and Mr. Perkins's "unhinged Nazi rant." Others denounced him
for defending his former wife Danielle Steel, and even for owning too many Rolex watches.

Maybe
the critics are afraid that Mr. Perkins is onto something about the
left's political method. Consider the recent record of liberals in
power. They're the ones obsessed with the Koch brothers and other billionaires contributing to conservative
causes, siccing journalists to trash them and federal agencies to shut
them down.

Starting with little more than an insane statement from a very rich man, these masterful op-ed writers 1) Asserted that "critics" are lying about their motives; 2) Inserted a substitute motive for those critics' ire, based on no evidence whatsoever; and then, 3) Proceed to attack that ghost motive that they invented. This is the art of rhetoric, young propagandists. Learn it well.

After moving on to criticize Obama, Andrew Cuomo, Bill de Blasio, and the New York Times—none of whom have anything to do with Tom Perkins' letter, except, I guess, for the fact that they helped inspire the horribly anti-rich era in which Tom Perkins is forced to live, luxuriously—the Journal concludes, "The liberals aren't encouraging violence, but they are promoting
personal vilification and the abuse of government power to punish
political opponents." And you know who else promoted the personal vilification and the abuse of government power to punish political opponents?

Our condolences to the Wall Street Journal's news reporters, many of whom really are very sane.